


oh, how they come and go

by friendly_ficus



Series: from a much outdated style [4]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: AU where they're basically gods, Angst, Gen, Minor Character Death, this is pretty sad just letting yall know, vague nods to canon and even vaguer nods to d&d
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-18 23:20:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16128791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendly_ficus/pseuds/friendly_ficus
Summary: He’s a ferryman, a shepherd, the moment before a moment; sometimes he loses the fine line he’s walking. He wants out of the grave but he can’t seem to stop digging.Or: Interlude Two, Vax





	oh, how they come and go

  Vax’ildan stands at a threshold that no longer exists; there’s no house here anymore. (It feels like he should turn away, should run screaming back to the forest where his sister is hunting. It would be the right thing to do.)

  It’s been years, and the air of Byroden no longer tastes of ash. Heavy clouds turn the sky above him dark and lonely and he has no idea why he’s come here, why his feet ache from the walk. There’s no one home.

  Vax steps through where the doorway used to be and bizarrely feels the need to wipe his feet.

_ (What am I doing here?) _

  Standing in the spaces where his mother should be won’t bring her back. He knows this. He knows this. His chest feels tight and his mother is dead and this is where the kitchen used to be, before the world ended. Here is where his mother used to sit and mend clothing. Here was the window she called to her twins through.

  (He’s stopped breathing and his heartbeat strains against his ribs, frantic, a bird throwing itself against the bars of a cage. He thinks he should be screaming, here, but there’s just  _ nothing,  _ just an endless empty space where his home should be and his breath should be and his mother should be; somewhere inside he’d been imagining her here, perfectly alright, all this time but there’s  _ nothing  _ and something in him just. Breaks.)

  The dark clouds deepen, throwing the empty ground into heavy shadow, like night. Vax blinks, and floating in the air in front of him, twisting like a tiny tangle of thread, is a strange light. It’s snarled and knotted, the size of his hand just hanging in the kitchen space - he reaches out a hand and touches it.

  Ghostly pale and translucent, his kitchen stands around him.  _ Run,  _ he should run, he should  _ not be seeing this  _ but. But. Behind him, at the ghost table, his mother is humming as she sews a buttonhole in a shirt.

  “Mother?” Vax goes to her side on numb legs,  **_pulling_ ** away from the place he was, staring at her face. She does not look at him. Outside, he hears a bird singing. Everything sounds murky and hollow, echoing oddly against the muted colors. There’s some sort of sound in the distance but he’s caught, rapt, in Elania’s voice. He reaches out and his hand goes right through hers, right through the table.

  (The world is flickering oddly, the muted images of the kitchen to the dark bleakness of the night and back again. The thread twists itself around his outstretched fingers, hot like metal. But he’s not there, he’s in the kitchen at his mother’s side. But he’s not  _ there,  _ he’s reaching for the strange light and his hand is burning as it crosses his knuckles -  _ Oh fuck,  _ he thinks wildly,  _ there are two of me.) _

  His mother stops humming and puts her sewing down. She tilts her head, listening. Vax hears a distant screech. He tries again, stepping in front of her, calling out. She stares right through him, looking towards the window.

  (The thread pulls tighter and if he could move he would be pulling  _ away. _ )

  The screeching cry comes louder and he sees naked fear on his mother’s face as he  _ lunges  _ for her because he knows now, he  _ understands -  _

  Flames descend and Elaina inhales to scream and then - 

  nothing. 

  Behind him, at the ghost table, his mother is humming as she sews a buttonhole in a shirt. Vax falls to his knees. It repeats.

  When he surfaces from the ghost echo at last, the thread vanishes and he falls to his hands and knees, retching. His hand is burning where it touched the light and there are tears running down his face. When Vax looks up through swollen eyelids, the dark clouds are dispersing.

  But he feels fucking terrible and there is something not-him, something hot and cold and Other where his heart should be.

\---

  Vax doesn’t really remember how he gets back to their camp that first day. He knows that he cried himself hoarse under the Byroden sky, vaguely thinks he got up and walked back to the nearest buildings with shaking hands. Then he just, just took a fucking  _ second  _ to gather himself in the shadow between two homes and -

  Now he’s here, next to the firepit. The sight of the ashes makes him shiver, and his hand touching the ground startles a curse from his lips. He has no idea  _ what the hell is happening  _ but when Vex gets back she’ll be cold. Yeah. Right, shit, he should build a fire. And bandage his hand.

  He isn’t sure how long he’s been staring into the fire when a stick  _ snaps.  _ Vax gets unsteadily to his feet, drawing the cheap dagger from his belt, looking into a wall of trees and ready for a dragon or whatever the fuck  _ else. _

_ Croaaawk. Snap snap.  _ Slowly, body tense with adrenaline, he looks up. And oh, it’s only a bird in the branches above him, breaking sticks. Not his sister, not his mother, not a dragon. Just a raven, staring at him with its little eyes, breaking twigs in its beak.

\---

  Trinket is a literal bear cub.

  (Vex carried him into camp the first night after everything, deposited him on the ground next to Vax’s bandaged hand and sat on the other side of the brown furry lump and firmly declared that they were keeping him and she was his mother now, thank you very much. 

_ Uh, what.  _ “He’s... a bear?” Vax offered weakly, off-kilter. The raven in the tree above him let out a sleepy  _ crooak _ .

  Trinket  _ harrumphed  _ in reply, curling against Vex’s side more snugly.

  Vex’s eyes flashed strangely in the light of the fire, and he caught a glimpse of something  _ lost  _ on her face. She opened her mouth and closed it again, and he saw her hand was shaking where she was petting the bear. There was blood under her fingernails.

  “Uh, he’s... a good bear? Does he have a name?”

  She had looked up, tension easing from her face. “Trinket, I think. A Trinket of my very own.”)

  Well, he’s not much of a cub anymore, going through that phase where all his limbs are too long and growing into an adult, dignified bear. When Trinket clomps across the campsites these days, his footfalls are heavier and he eats more. He watches Vax with tolerance and Vex with adoration, follows her whenever she ducks out of whatever clearing they’re living in.

  Vax is grateful for this, glad she has someone to protect her. Someone she will  _ let  _ protect her.

  (The day after they both changed, Vax had woken up next to a cold firepit with Trinket snuffling around the camp, clearly distressed. Vex was gone.

  It had taken them two days to find her, curled up inside a hollow tree trunk with a strange bow in her hands, shaking. Her hair was longer and she wouldn’t speak of it.)

  These past few months Vex hasn’t smiled as much, and there’s a new distance between the two of them that he has no clue how to bridge. It feels like they’re both floundering, both pulling away from each other by inches. She takes longer trips into the trees, Trinket at her heels. And Vax is tripping into shadows, and every town he slips through has what he’s pretty sure is an increased raven population. Sometimes their croaks and calls sound like voices through the dark. He’s losing his sister and losing himself, they’re both new and strange and more different than they’ve ever been.

  (She’s leaving for a while in the morning and he is too, to grow and learn and figure out what happened to them, and it’s for the best, really, but it fucking hurts.)

  So he spent a few coppers in the last town and bought as many pink ribbons as he could carry, and sits tying them frantically into Trinket’s fur.

  Vex comes back to camp and scolds him while Trinket groans mournfully about his great sufferings, but she laughs, too. And that’s what it’s all about, anyway.

\---

  Vax doesn’t really know how to be alone. It’s never been a skill he needed to learn, not even in Syngorn. Sure, living there was shit, but he always had someone to talk to. For a few weeks without Vex he doesn’t speak to anyone at all, no one but the birds that hop along and peck at his shadow.

  He just sort of... wanders for a while, tries to ignore when the birds sound like words. Something is unsettled in him, still shifting, he’s dancing on the edge of a void that might swallow him entirely. Sometimes the shadows do; they just pick him up and spit him out somewhere new and he can’t  _ control  _ it, keeps seeing ghostly doubles in the corner of his eye, watching and lonely. 

  Vax can’t stop any of it, swirling dark around his ankles and shoulders and up in his throat, like grief in the back of his mouth. So he runs straight into the shadows, or maybe they pull him in and pull him apart until he’s a shade, he’s a shadow of himself and his sister and his mother’s hands at the kitchen table and he loses himself completely.

  (His fingers ache still where the thread wrapped around them.)

\---

  He’s in a field of tangled grass, bleached pale in the moonlight. He’s in the Clasp tunnels again, watching someone else go out to steal something. He’s at the end of an alley in Emon, watching someone watch a general’s house. He’s in Marquet, in Westruun, in Draconia, everywhere there is a shadow there is Vax and his hand  _ burns  _ where he touched that light and -

_ Enough.  _ Talons seize his shoulder, slicing deep as a raven screams in his ear. And every echo of himself pulls back  **_in_ ** _ - _

  Vax stands in a field of dead grass, a single tree rising up like a skeletal hand, blood dripping slowly from his shoulder. He hears the  _ thud  _ of a body slumping to the ground and his feet move to it automatically. 

  A human man leans against the tree trunk, some sort of large... snake thing lying headless a few feet from him. Vax hesitates.

  The man looks up and sees what Vax was looking at. “S’alright, boy, I got it. Won’t trouble anyone anymore.” His eyes are glazed and bright as he takes Vax in. “Say, you’re bleeding, let me - “ The man tries to lever himself up but fails, slumping back down again. Poison, maybe, whatever the case may be - 

  “You’re dying,” Vax hears himself say.

  “Seems that way. You cold, fella? Got a cloak in my, ah, in my pack over there. Won’t need it now I guess.” The stranger’s voice shakes a little, and he gestures vaguely in a direction.

  Vax comes closer, sits beside the man. The ravens in the tree are motionless and numerous, watching like sentinels the scene below. The man is shivering, now, slipping, and Vax can  **_feel_ ** him going.

  He reaches out and takes the man’s hand, the only measure of comfort he can think to give. The scratches on his shoulder ache with cold and the tangle around his fingers burns as he closes the still, staring eyes. Vax stands.

  He slings the cloak around his shoulders and it turns dark and heavy and warm,  _ his  _ in a way nothing else has ever been, his by a will and by right. The part of him that is shadows twists beneath it, comfortable.

_ Come,  _ the ravens rustle in the trees,  _ follow, follow, come. _

  Vax does.

\---

  His steps are steady as he walks to the imposing building, though his shadow writhes strangely where it’s trapped beneath his cloak. Vasselheim is bitterly cold in winter, and his breath billows in front of him in clouds. Nearby, music spills from a briefly opened door before the sound freezes away. Raven’s Crest looms like the end of a journey; and then he is in front of it. 

  The door opens with a very faint creak, and the birds behind him flap up to nearby branches and outcroppings in the architecture. The woman in the doorway wears a dark veil but he can feel her gaze on him, waiting.

  “I’m Vax.”

  She nods. “We’ve been expecting you. Come,” and she turns to the temple interior, gesturing for him to follow.

  Vax, raw with contradictions and strife, shoulder still cold and fingers still burning, obeys.

\---

  The blood is cold and he is drowning, it rushes into his lungs, thick and iron and freezing and - 

_ Fate-touched, you come to me at last. _

  The goddess reaches out a hand and takes his aching one, untangling the shining thread that had snared him. There’s a story, his mother used to tell a story about a mouse and a thorn and a lion’s paw, and this is nothing like that. He is in awe when she lets his hand go, in awe when the mask fills his vision. He doesn’t even know how to start perceiving her, resplendent, godly, beautiful and terrible and  _ right there - _

  “I don’t understand,” he says, and okay that wasn’t a great start. “What I mean is-”

_ I have seen you here in many lifetimes, Vax’ildan. My Fate-touched, so bright. It will have to be different here. _

  “Do you... is there something you want me to do?”  _ In return for fixing me _ , he doesn’t say. She must hear, though, she must, his mouth is heavy with unspoken devotions. Faith has found him like a fact, like gravity, and he would - he isn’t sure what to do with it but he aches to go to his knees before her and worship.

  The unmoving mask is wistful, melancholy somehow.  _ Fly, Fate-touched, and when the time comes... _

  (Her hand is heavy on the back of his neck, under his hair, and he shudders.)

_ You will know. I do not abandon what is mine. _

  And he is choking in the depths of the pool, as the hands of the priestess help him out. But his hand no longer burns.

\---

  Their first meeting goes something like this:

  “The glorious Gilmore, then?”

  “I am the man himself. And you, my friend?”

  “I’m Vax’ildan.”

  (A thousand miles away, a thief makes an impossible escape. In Emon, an old man breathes his last breath and passes peacefully.)

  Shaun never once shivers when hearing the name.

\---

  Gilmore is like the sun, if the sun could talk and do arcane magic, so when he asks Vax to do some investigating in Emon, Vax follows.

  (His time in Vasselheim was needed and he liked it, liked being helpful. It’s difficult to put into words, but the desperate hunger in him, the  _ need  _ to serve something greater that sparked when he met the Raven Queen was satisfied there. Still, he missed his sister like a wound, and he could only spend so long hanging around Raven’s Crest. He’s learned to stand, to fly, to fix whatever gets broken and to keep himself together and anchored. It was time to leave.)

  Vax watches Krieg’s house for days, listening for the strange noises Gilmore reported. When he hears it, grating and distant on the fourth night, he stops. He just, stops. 

  Because his mother looked out her window, fearful, at a sound like this one.  _ Dragon.  _ Vax doesn’t consider that it’s impossible. He doesn’t waste time thinking about how strange it is to hear a dragon call from the large estate of General Krieg. Vax  **_lets go_ ** and lets the shadows of the alley and the night carry him away until he’s stepping out of a corner of Shaun Gilmore’s living room, until he’s looking into the other man’s face.

  “It’s a dragon. This is too big for just the two of us - we need to call my sister.”

  So they do.

\---

  Vex walked into the shop, confident and serene until she saw him; the grin broke over her face and a crushing hug followed, his sister, his twin. Gods, they needed the time but it was too  _ long,  _ too long apart. They both talk rapidly, half sentences and phrases bleeding together. At some point he must’ve introduced her to Gilmore, because the other man is smiling and nodding along.

  Vex’ahlia comes to Emon with the first whispers of spring behind her, and a missing piece of his life clicks back into place. 

\---

  Vax loves flying, loves the wind reaching for him and the freedom of it. A stinking sewer tunnel beneath the city of Emon is about as far from flying as one can get. 

  Shaun Gilmore at his back, charisma and goodness radiating out - when Vax first met the man it was like being hit in the face by a very charming brick. Just, impact. He lives a life caught in shades of gray, from the Clasp and his time in Raven’s Crest and the in-between where he was everywhere. Someone who just... just is good was a bit of a shock.

  Vex at his side, cutting through the shadows like a knife as they slip towards Krieg’s place. (“Can you do this,” she’d asked, that light blazing in her eyes. “A dragon?”)

  The answer, of course, was  _ yes. _

  Vax loves flying and freedom and bright lights in the darkness. But when he loses his edge, when he steps off the line of himself, those things aren’t what draw him back.

  Even after all this time, Vax knows himself best with a dagger in his hand.

\---

  The lock into Krieg’s cellar is easy enough to pick, he obviously wasn’t expecting anyone to break in through an escape route. The General acts tired, affronted, but Vax sees the rippling under his skin and throws himself forward, daggers out and wings unfurling - 

  at some point they crash through the big window overlooking Krieg’s yard, Vax a tangle of blood and feathers, spitting in the dragon’s face as the iron form writhes impossibly large around him -

  Gilmore snaps out a spell and the world around Vax slows down as he  **_blurs_ ** forward again, only for a solid metal wing to crash against him like it’s swatting a gnat, he hears Vex screaming out in rage -

  the air around him smells of dragon and death and Gilmore is tipping a potion into his mouth while his sister fires arrows unerringly, finding impossible cracks in a creature made of armor and he’s up again - 

  Vax drives both daggers up,  _ up,  _ through the roof of the dragon’s mouth and the massive beast falls from the sky, shaking the world below.

  He wonders bizarrely for a moment if dragons have souls, because now seems like a time to grapple with philosophy and religion before figuring  _ fuck it,  _ and lands lightly next to the giant corpse just in time for guards to pour into the yard.

\---

  “Are you honestly going to lurk next to Trinket all night?” Vex asks this breathless from dancing. They’re a week post-dragonslaying, at the party the Sovereign ordered to “celebrate a successful accomplishment.” Vax shrugs.

  “We have a man-to-bear agreement. He listens to me say that this, while a good party, is a bunch of coverup bullshit. In return, I give him treats and don’t put bows in his fur.”

  Vex gives him a sharp look and makes a shushing gesture. “Is this the  _ time- _ ”

  “They didn’t  _ have  _ an  _ investigation  _ going. We showed up, solved the problem, killed the dragon.” (He’s uncomfortable with the attention of minor dignitaries, too much of Syngorn cropping up in his brain. He keeps waiting for someone to say something that upsets Vex because  _ fuck, none of these have killed a dragon  _ but there’s always something people pick at.)

  “Right, we killed a dragon. So let’s go celebrate on someone else’s dime.” She’s tugging his hand back toward the party, frowning at the scars on his fingers but determined to draw him back to the living when he blurts:

  “Doesn’t this make you think of Syngorn?”

  Vex freezes, staring at his face and taking in the serious lines there. “Want to run away?” She’s changed focus entirely, glancing towards the distant garden wall. “I think those hedges could support Trinket’s weight, if we’d like to escape. I’ve danced enough for an evening.”

_ Humph,  _ says Trinket, getting to his four feet.

  (When they’re over the back wall, ducking through the streets on the way out of the city, his sister’s eyes gleam their new deep purple-blue and he’s reminded again that they’ve both changed utterly. Still, she’s Vex, all his sister when she says, “You know why it didn’t remind me of back then? Because now, we’re the ones who _ won. _ ”

  And hey, she’s right about that.)

\---

  First impressions can be tough, but he’s not about to leave Vex alone with a bunch of strangers, not like he can stalk out of the meeting before they’ve adjourned and rush off to Vasselheim.

  (She promised, the Raven Queen  _ told  _ him this would happen and he  _ knows,  _ his shadow snarling silently against his spine in agreement, he  _ knows  _ this is what she meant.)

  As the talking continues he calms, steadies, grabs his outline and holds it tightly as panic becomes a plan. Other people, people like him and Vex, it feels right somehow. Not like the twins will lose each other, but like adding something more. So he’ll go to Vasselheim with Pike and Grog and everything will work out because it  _ has  _ to work out - 

  Vasselheim fixes nothing, actually. Shit.

\---

  Vax settles next to Pike to watch the sun rise outside of Kraghammer.

  Vasselheim was godless and he is slipping, the ground unsteady, his path uncertain. Pyrah calls out a hundred ghostly calls and he tries to find the fate in it but the ravens watch with despairing eyes. He has no idea what the next step is.

  But hey, at least he knows something about killing dragons.

**Author's Note:**

> NOTES: So that’s Vax, who didn’t really have help with the whole sort of metamorphosis the way Scanlan did, and it shows. He’s just... he’s just very good at Suffering, I hadn’t intended it to be this sad but that’s how it is folks.  
> Next Time: they go to deal with Underdark Shenanigans that I will not rewatch the early episodes to research, so expect a fun interpretation of the area because I remember the Mood but not much else haha  
> Let me know what you think! I’m enjoying writing this story and I love feedback!


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